Both from the standpoint of number of bottles of the same Port and highest cost, my largest purchase was 14 bottles of 1937 Noval Colheita in November 2009.
On the 9th of September last year, I went to London and bought 58 bottles of vintage port (fifteen different wines), with vintages ranging from 1873 to 1985; and at a total cost of over £9,000 ($15,000).
Five of the rarest bottles were bought by arrangement for others, but it was still an expensive day!
Wow, some impressive purchases... I can only dream!
My own largest purchase was 18 bottles of 2003 a few years ago... At the time my financial means were limited. This large of a purchase was made possible only due to a misprogrammed sku sticker... I paid only $18 per.
Nine cases of Nimrod when I heard they had ceased production. I think it was about $30-32 a bottle at the time. I have only a few bottles left.
And that was about the right amount to buy - there were 13 cases available in SE Michigan at the time. The last few bottles are beginning to fade a bit after at least (since mid-2008) 3 years for a tawny. Just not quite as "nice" as they once were.
I bought out someone's port collection so they could get into Barolo. This was back about 10 years ago. It turned out to be 4 1/2 cases of various ports from the 80's and early 90's.
dan s wrote:I bought out someone's port collection so they could get into Barolo. This was back about 10 years ago. It turned out to be 4 1/2 cases of various ports from the 80's and early 90's.
My largest personal purchase was probably buying 36 bottles of Churchill 1985 a few months after trying a bottle given to me by JDAW. I was short of 1985 in my collection at the time and had been impressed by the bottle I tried. Churchill 1985 was on Berry's list at the time and at a fair price, so I bought 3 of the 5 cases available.
The largest purchase for which I have ever been responsible was a group purchase for a total of 54 magnums and 12 bottles in one delivery.
My single largest purchase was actually a number of purchases spread over a few days, so perhaps doesn't count. It was 12 to 18 months ago when Tesco first put the Croft LBV 2004 on the shelf at £3.99 per half bottle. I spent the next few days visiting every Tesco store I could find and by the end of the week had 78 half bottles for me and about half that amount for other people.
A few months later Tesco repeated the offer, so I did the same again